Death Unleashed
by blddmn
Summary: When Death breaks free from its prison in the mortal realm, it wages a war of terror and (you guessed it) death against the living as it attempts to reclaim its stolen Hallows and reap its revenge upon the mortals who imprisoned it. Cannon compliant up to when Harry sees Dumbledore in Limbo.


**Death Unleashed**

Ruminations in Limbo

**Disclaimer:** I claim none of the rights to anything you may or may not recognise. In fact, just assume that everything you see has been shamelessly taken from somewhere else. Got it?

**A quick note** on my use of _italics_. I tend to use them for thoughts, songs, verbal spells, and flashbacks. So if you see some italics in brackets that will most likely be the character's thoughts on something, not some author's note giving my take on the situation.

**Summary:** What if the tale of the three brothers was much more literal than most believed? What if it was more real than even the most fervent of those who believed in the Hallows had known? What if it was truly Death that had been defeated by the Peverell brothers and had been bound beneath magic and stone on the most unforgiving island known to mankind? And finally, what if at long last the bonds had been broken and Death was free to take back what was stolen from it?

-…~D-U~…-

_Ruminations in Limbo_

-…~D-U~…-

Harry looked around the vast, ethereal place he was in. All about him was pure white mist billowing around, forming into solid shapes. He soon found himself standing in what could only be described as a heavenly version of the Kings Cross train station.

"I was wondering when you'd get here, Harry," the familiar voice sounded from just behind him. Pivoting round, Harry found himself face to face with his recently deceased Headmaster.

"I guess Tom killed me then," Harry deadpanned. Truly, he had expected to die, but he would be lying to say that he wasn't holding a secret hope that he was immune to the Avada Kedavra.

"In a manner of speaking, he did," Dumbledore said cryptically, his eyes twinkling.

"So what is this place?" Harry asked, purposefully avoiding giving into the temptation to ask what the Headmaster meant.

"What would you say this place is?" Dumbledore asked back with a genial smile. D_amn his Socratic questioning!_ Harry thought in frustration, he was still none too happy with Dumbledore at the moment.

"Well, I'm not burning in hellfire," Harry said in exaggerated contemplation, "but I've yet to see the pearly gates. My guess would be Limbo."

"Unless of course the afterlife does not resemble Christian mysticism, I myself have always been much more inclined towards the Greek Pantheon," Dumbledore retorted, still smiling pleasantly as if this were all a great game.

"Yeah, well this clearly isn't Hades," Harry shot back, a tone of anger finally appearing in his voice. "Cut the crap, Dumbledore. I sacrificed myself for your God damned plan; it's time for you to give me some answers!"

The twinkle left Dumbledore's eye to be replaced by genuine sorrow. If Harry hadn't just given up his tenuous hold on the mortal coil for this man, he might have even felt sorry for making Dumbledore look so mournful.

"Of course, Harry. Yours has been the greatest burden of them all; tell me what you wish to know."

"Oh where to begin?" Harry said mockingly, "There have been so many secrets on your part surrounding this whole sordid affair that I honestly can't put my finger on the most important thing!"

Harry paced around for a few moments. He could ask about Dumbledore's history and the story behind him and Grindelwald, but that wasn't really that relevant to the current situation. He could ask about the whole Snape/Lily/James love triangle, but he'd pretty much got that one down already. He could ask why Dumbledore hadn't better prepared him to fight Voldemort, but he knew that Dumbledore had needed him to sacrifice himself for the greater good. In the end he decided to find out about the one thing that had been driving him mad over the past few months; what on earth did the Hallows have to do with anything?

"Why didn't you tell me about the Hallows in sixth year, and then leave a ludicrously obscure mark trying to draw our attention to in the book you left Hermione, knowing full well that we would have absolutely no idea what you were on about?" he finally asked.

"Because, my dear boy, for the first time in centuries a wizard has known the location of all three of the Hallows," Dumbledore answered, "such a thing happening could only be the machination of the fates. And when I realised this, I knew that whatever happened between you and Voldemort, the Hallows would somehow play a part in it."

"But how would they play a part?" Harry demanded in frustration, "I know that you wanted Snape to kill you on your command so that the Elder Wand would lose its power. But why bother trying to tell me, Ron, and Hermione about that in the first place?"

"Well Harry, I'm afraid that you are in fact completely incorrect about the Elder Wand," Dumbledore's damned twinkle returned. "The Elder Wand can never truly lose its power. I had in fact intended for Severus to claim it so that he could assist you more thoroughly in the destruction of Voldemort. It was most frustrating that young Draco managed to disarm me first. Naturally, after that it was ensured that the wand was stored with my body so that Draco couldn't get his hands on it."

"That still doesn't explain why you left that symbol in the book you willed to Hermione," Harry pointed out.

"I had hoped that you would be able to use the knowledge of the Hallows to aid you when the time came to fulfil the prophecy," Dumbledore explained. "Judging by your use of the stone to get bolster your resolve and get past the Dementors, we can safely say that my plan worked."

Harry had to take several deep breaths and count back from an obscenely high number to prevent himself from striking Dumbledore. Eventually he decided to move slightly away from the Headmaster's master plan of Harry's suicide via Voldemort.

"Why did the stone protect me from the Dementors?" Harry asked once he was calm enough to speak without launching a verbal assault on the man before him.

"Now that, Harry, is a most interesting question," Dumbledore said pleasantly (_Why does he have to be so un-bloody-flappable!_). "It is something that I myself have pondered on and have a fairly good theory about."

Harry waited for a good few moments for the Headmaster to continue before realising that the old man had no intention of doing so. "Please, Headmaster, leave me in the dark some more, why don't you?" he deadpanned.

Dumbledore laughed (_Bloody wanker!_). "I thought you were frustrated enough with the tale of the Deathly Hallows, Harry," Dumbledore smiled, "and my theory is very much tied in with what I know about the true origin of those three magical items."

"I'm annoyed with your use of the Hallows," Harry clarified, "not the items themselves."

"Very well," Dumbledore acquiesced, "it of course all started with three brothers who lived during the thirteenth century; Ignotus, Antioch, and Cadmus Peverell. The three of them were considered to be the most magically gifted wizards since the Hogwarts four, some even say since Merlin himself.

"What you have doubtless heard about them crossing a river by using a bridge is, of course, a load of hogwash, although there is some nice symbolism in there. What actually happened – and I guarantee you that only myself and Gellert Grindelwald ever rediscovered enough of the forgotten Hallows lore to know this – is that they built a bridge not over a river, but between worlds."

"And you said the bridge over a river idea was hogwash," Harry interrupted with a scoff.

"Don't be glib, Harry," Dumbledore chastised him, "As you can see from the place we stand now, there are spiritual realms far beyond which we experience through our material lives."

"So how did they bridge the gap between worlds then?" Harry challenged.

"A very astute question, Harry," Dumbledore praised, "It is, of course, linked to something that I'm sure you have noticed is something of a discrepancy by now; just why is it that so many of the major events of the magical world happen in so small a country as the United Kingdom?

"The answer to this, of course, is the fact that the land which we call home is covered in magical ley lines. In fact, since the fall of Atlantis, Stonehenge and Hogwarts have been the first and second most magically powerful sites in the world respectively."

"Really?" Harry asked, somewhat bemused, "never heard anyone talking about Stonehenge in the magical community before now."

"That is because the area surrounding Stonehenge has been so saturated by ancient dark magic that the ritual stones that focus its power are now completely inoperable," Dumbledore explained. "And it is all the doing of the Peverell brothers.

"You see, when the three brothers sought to bridge the gap between the world of the living and the dead, they channelled all the power of Stonehenge into a single doorway; an item of their own design which now resides in the department of mysteries."

"The Veil!" Harry came to the sudden realisation.

"Indeed, the Veil," the Headmaster nodded solemnly. "With so much power being pushed into an item that was designed for such an ill-conceived purpose, it was inevitable that the barriers between worlds would be torn. And torn it was.

"From behind the Veil came the being that the story named Death, riding upon its own thestral. Along with him came a host of hellish minions, designed for the sole purpose of sowing the seeds of despair and harvesting souls for their master."

"The Dementors," Harry summarized.

"Yes, the Dementors," Dumbledore agreed, "a race of immortal, nigh invulnerable monsters. Now, as the horde of Dementors spread across the land, intent on harvesting souls for their master, the three brothers faced off against Death itself, and by some miracle were victorious.

"From their foe, the three brothers took all his belongings; Antioch took Death's staff, the branch of an ancient elder tree, and crafted it into a wand, using the tail hair of Death's own thestral as its core. Cadmus took the jewelled broach that clasped Death's cloak about it and from it pulled the resurrection stone, which stored some of Death's own power. Finally, Ignotus took Death's robes, and from them fashioned himself the ultimate cloak of invisibility."

"What about the hordes of Dementors?" Harry asked.

"There was little the brothers could do about them for the time being," Dumbledore responded, "As they, like Death itself, are impossible to kill. Now, having defeated Death – and me and Gellert theorised that they used very advanced transfigurations to hold him down long enough to rob him of his belongings – they needed somewhere where they could imprison him without the risk of him breaking free as well as a place where they would eventually be able to imprison his minions."

"You can't mean Azkaban," Harry said in disbelief.

"Indeed I do mean Azkaban. The wards there are incredibly well designed and powerful. Of course the various mass breakouts orchestrated by Voldemort must have severely weakened the place. But originally it was intended to house Death and its Dementors."

"It did house the Dementors," Harry pointed out.

"And still does to a certain extent," Dumbledore nodded in agreement, "although I'm fairly certain that when the prison was rediscovered on that miserable island hidden away in the North Sea, the wizards who found it believed the Dementors to be the jailors rather than inmates. It is possibly one of the gravest errors of the last millennium."

"And what of Death?" Harry queried, now truly invested in the story.

"I believe that Death resides there still; bound beneath both earth and spell, chained with bonds of magic and steel to ensure that his strength is drained to such a level that it can't break free of its prison."

"And what if it was able to break free?" Harry asked in a hushed voice.

"I shudder to think of it Harry," Dumbledore admitted. "So much knowledge has been lost since the time of the Peverell brothers, and I truly do not know if even I, at the height of my power, would have been able to accomplish what they did. My best estimate is that, should Death ever be free of its bonds, it would wage a war upon the land of the living; intent on taking revenge for its imprisonment at the hands of wizardkind."

"Do you think that's likely to happen?" Harry was genuinely scared for the people he had left behind. What would happen if Death did come? What fate would befall all the friends he had given his life for at the hands of the Dementors and their master?

"Oh I doubt it," Dumbledore said jovially. Harry stared in pure shock. "And now that you know why the stone protects you from Dementors it's high time you were on your way."

"On my way?" Harry thundered, "What the bloody hell do you mean 'on my way?!'"

"Oh yes, I should have mentioned earlier. You can go back to the land of the living if you so wish, sorry for not mentioning it sooner," Dumbledore said with a smile. Harry swore; loudly and repeatedly.

As Harry hurled verbal abuse at the genially smiling Headmaster, the old man simply reached down and pulled what looked like a mutilated baby corpse with Voldemort's face out from under a bench Harry hadn't noticed was there until that exact moment.

"What the fuck is that?" he demanded.

"This is, of course, the piece of Voldemort's soul that attached itself to you, Harry," Dumbledore explained happily. "Now, little Tom and I had better be off to the next great adventure. You have a Dark Lord to defeat after all."

Harry simply stared in mixed shock and incredulity as the man known as Albus Dumbledore started to fade from view along with the mutilated babymort. He couldn't even manage to speak as Albus called out his final words.

"Remember, Harry," he shouted, his voice sounding as if it was coming from across a great distance, "the fates have chosen you as their champion. Believe in yourself, and you can shape the world."

-…~D-U~…-

_Ruminations in Limbo_

-…~D-U~…-

"Bloody hell, Harry," Ron said in complete and utter shock as he looked at his best friend. "I can't believe it turned out that _you_ were the true owner of the Elder Wand. I mean, what are the chances of that actually happening?"

Harry had managed to pull Ron and Hermione away from the great hall after he had defeated Voldemort, the three of them were now sitting under said hall in the kitchens (which was conspicuously devoid of house elves, they were probably trying to clean the wreckage from the castle).

"What I want to know is what on earth you were thinking by shouting '_Deus ex Machina!_' when Voldemort cast the killing curse at you," Hermione said angrily.

"Hey, it worked didn't it?" Harry goaded her on with a grin.

"That's not the point!" she said angrily, "It's not even a real spell."

"Sounded like one to me," Ron put in.

Harry just had to laugh at that for a moment. "If the fates want to paint me into such a ridiculous situation, then who am I to alter their plans?" Harry asked with mock innocence. "Besides, what else would you call the whole me actually owning the Elder Wand scenario. It was clearly a nice large dose of divine intervention."

"Not the point, Harry," Hermione sighed.

"Enough of that, you two," Ron decided to break it up before it turned back into an argument (_wait, when did Ron become the responsible one?_). "What do you plan to do with the Hallows, Harry?"

Harry gave Ron a contemplative look. He had originally planned on leaving the stone hidden in the forbidden forest and not telling anyone where it is. He would then have left the Elder Wand with Dumbledore and kept the cloak for himself. That, however, was a silly idea.

"I'll probably keep them all," Harry admitted. Although he didn't mention that his chat with Albus in Limbo had actually scared him into feeling the need to have some sort of leverage over the supernatural. "Being master of death sounds like it could be useful down the line," he concluded with a joke.

"Harry, nobody is meant to have that much power," Hermione said in her most sensible tone.

"Good thing I'm not nobody then," Harry quipped. He then continued to cut Hermione off before she could start a rant. "Look, my life has always been difficult. And I'm fairly certain that there's always going to be someone out to kill me. Having the Hallows may well give me the edge I need to survive a world where every budding Dark Lord will want to off me to prove they are better than Voldemort."

"Makes sense to me," Ron offered his support.

"I'm still not sure, Harry," Hermione said. "Why don't you at least do something different with the stone? There's no way you'll need it to be a celebrity Auror. I'll grant that the Elder Wand will probably be useful in that line of work, and I'd never ask you to get rid of your dad's cloak; but please get rid of the stone. Something that can bring the dead away from the afterlife is inherently bad. You know what happened because of it in the tale of the three brothers."

"Trust me, I know," Harry said seriously. "I promise I'll think about it, Hermione. But for now, let's just enjoy a world without Voldemort in it, alright?"

"I can do that," Hermione responded with a smile.

The tree of them spent the rest of the day taking what comfort they could from the fact that they had once and for all ridded the world of the evil of Lord Voldemort.

-…~D-U~…-

_Ruminations in Limbo_

-…~D-U~…-

**A.N.** Well there you have it, the first chapter of my new story. I hope you liked it.

For those who are thinking "WHAT ABOUT IN MY HEAD!?" I'd like to reassure you that I haven't shelved that story. It just happens that I got side tracked trying to work out a Hogwarts timetable that made sense to use in that story (it was bloody hard). The next chapter for IMH should be out soon!

Anyway, please tell me what you think by leaving a **review**. Like it, hate it, want to get a tattoo of it on your face? Tell me so =)

Thanks for reading

Blddmn.


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